Kaia's 1!

Pictures from Kaia's Fairy Princess and Pirate birthday party...

*The pirate patches came with earings and the boys all wanted to wear them :) *With out question, this was Kaia's favorite part of the party. She finished off her cupcake and 2 fairy ice cream cones - way to go little Clara Belle!

*Rusty used his own money to pick out and buy Kaia her present (well at least $2 of it, but he was really excited about it)

*We played pin the patch on the pirate and pin the crown on the princess (you can kind of see it on the wall below). We also hid one of her presents and made the pirates go on a hunt to find it.

*Getting ready for the pinata...
*Some of the decorations

We love our sweet little Kaia! She is such a little girl and so far loves anything girly. As soon as Nate put her little stroller together she grabbed one of her new dolls and put her in it and started pushing/pulling it around. In the words of Rusty, "you're my favorite Kaia ever!"

Harder than it Looks

I attempted to put pig tails in Kaia's hair today and oh my that is hard work. How you manage to get those teeny tiny rubber bands around a squirming/screaming baby is beyond me. Getting a picture of the finished product wasn't any easier. I guess it's going to take a lot of practice and a whole lot of animal crackers.

Smart Start

Me: "Hey Rusty, what's your favorite sport?"
Rusty: "Um, probably playing Lego's...that's a sport, isn't it?"
I'm just glad he had a good time in his Smart Start Sports class and wants to know when it's starting again.

*Grass is a wonderful babysitter for Kaia because she does not like the feel of it and stays real still.

Today is Rusty's first day of 4 year old preschool! He is so excited to be one of the big kids. I was anxious for some reason, but he of course went in with no hesitation and didn't look back.

*

Huge Progress

Kaia weighs 13 pounds! She's still in the 0% percentile for weight and height but even the doctor commented on how much she's "filled out".

Besides eating, Kaia's also into sticking out her tongue and standing.

Husky

Kaia is nine months and finally packing on the pounds! When she went in for her last weight check (around 8 months) she was classified as failure to thrive since she was still at 10 pounds, same as her 6 month check up and only up slightly from her 4 month check up. The doctor ran some tests and everything came back normal except for low iron, so we got her started on some iron supplements and she is now rocking the baby chub! Ok, she might not be that chubby and rolly yet, but she is for sure gaining.

All lotioned up and ready to go swimming

Trying to crawl in a dress and shoes does not make her happy - but she looks cute!

Kayak = Strep Throat = Sleepovers

So my bro and his wife bought some kayak's. My parents soon followed and bought some too. We didn't buy any but went up to Kazi's with them the other weekend to try them out and had a good time. It was kinda hot while we were there so Rusty was super kind and shared his drink with the cousins, then broke out in a fever later that night which was the start of strep throat. Luckily he only shared the strep with me. He was pretty sick though and got the strep rash but never once complained about his throat hurting - don't let the whining fool you cause he's actually a pretty tough kid. About a week into the amoxicllin he broke out in another rash so we took him back to the doctors and found out he is allergic to penicillin and has a concerning heart murmur.
Next stop was an echocardiogram to make sure his heart was ok, but by this point he was done with the doctors and did not want to go...so I pulled out my super amazing parenting skills and brought on the bribes. Rusty and my cute nephew Titan have been wanting to have a sleepover FOREVER (ahh the life of a 4 year old) so I took advantage of this and offered a sleepover in exchange for Rusty being good all week and getting his heart checked out. Of course it worked because whoever said you shouldn't bribe your kids obviously never had a child of their own.
Thursday night he made up some manly invitations for Titan, Brody, Caden, and Jack and waited ever so patiently for the good times to begin. Friday came and they had the "THE BEST SLEEP OVER EVER!"
Life lesson: if your brother's cool and buys kayaks watch out because you'll end up sucking it up at the MS Bike Ride (that's a whole other story) as well as having a house full of screaming, but oh so cute, boys! Now onto the pictures:

My mom and dad in action...

Skipping rocks...

Nate and Rusty taking my dad's "boat" out...

A few days later...strepped out Rusty trying to find some peace and quiet in Nate's office...

With a healthy heart, Rusty was so glad the boys all got the memo to wear gray shirts and blue shorts to the BEST SLEEPOVER EVER! Long live Lego's!

Getting ready to watch some old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's...Turtle Power!

Still in a TMNT daze from last night...

Boss Rusty telling everyone to get close and huddle up under the table - he had a plan...

preparing to capture the MONSTER...

Tying the monstor up...

...and they actually did a pretty good job because the chair was strapped to Nate's bum pretty good!

Absolutely nothing to do with this post, but we went to Mount Rushmore over Memorial Day Weekend and here's part 1 of Rusty's video diary about it...

Fish, Bike, and Kaia

Pet Fish Update: Bonnie joined her pal George Washington last night. Rusty shed a few tears as Nate flushed her down the toilet but quickly recovered with a game of Super Mario Brothers.



Family Bike Ride: About 10 minutes into our bike ride, I popped both of my tires - I really don't like sticker bushes! Nate was kind enough to pedal the kids back home and get the car to come and pick me up. All of Nate's pedaling tuckered Rusty and Kaia out.

Seven Months: It's hard to believe Kaia is 7 months. She is getting so big (not really, but she is gaining and is almost up to 11.5 pounds!) She likes to eat rice cereal with apples, bananas, pears, rice puffs, strawberries, bread, animal crackers, amoxicillin and strongly dislikes all vegetables so far. She's pretty quick at rolling and army crawling but luckily we haven't had to put up the baby gates yet. Mamamama is her favorite babble and she tends to scream it in the middle of the night. Rusty is still enjoying his little sister and was pretty upset that I wouldn't let him pack her in his packback for show & tell last week.